"It's still there—it isn't it. It's another princess."
And at his words a peal of laughter—not very loud, but such pretty clear laughter, I wish you could hear it!—rang through the room, and the new princess, the living, moving princess, came forward to us, holding out her hands.
"So you have come at last," she said; "I expected you this morning. I knew you heard me at the door yesterday, and I thought your curiosity would bring you early."
I didn't quite like her calling us "curious." It wasn't quite the right word to use for all our pretty fancies about the princess, and even about the mystery.
"We never can come in the morning," I said, "because of our lessons. And—it wasn't curiosity."
"Indeed!" she replied, a tiny little bit mockingly; "not curiosity. What shall I call it, then, your inquiring minds, eh?"
I felt my face get red, and I felt that Tib's was getting red too.
"I don't know who you are," I burst out, "and if you don't choose to tell us, I am not going to ask. That isn't curiosity. But I wish you hadn't come; you've spoilt it all. Our own princess," and I glanced up at the portrait, looking, I could not but confess, like a washed-out doll beside the brilliant living beauty of the girl beside us, "our own princess is much nicer than you. And if we had been so curious we might have tried to find out things in pokey ways. We've never done that."
I looked, I suppose ready to cry. The lady's face changed, and then I knew that while she had been talking in that half teasing way, something in her voice and smile had reminded me of grandpapa—of grandpapa, I mean, when he was in that sort of laughing-at-us way that we couldn't bear. Perhaps this had made us all feel more vexed at her than she really deserved us to be. But when her face changed, and a soft, sorry look came over it, she reminded me of more than any real face I had ever seen—she reminded me of all the prettiest and nicest fancies I had ever had; the sweet look in her eyes was so sweet, that I wished I might put my arms round her and kiss her. And Tib told me afterwards that she had felt exactly the same.
"I'm very sorry," she said, simply; "I didn't come here to hurt your feelings. Good fairies never do that, unless to very naughty children, whose feelings need to be hurt. And yours don't need to be hurt, for I know you're not naughty children—very far from it. Of course you wouldn't try to find out things in any way that wasn't nice, I know that. But wouldn't you like to know my name?"